Budget woes put squeeze on student schedules at UNLV

Jennifer Knight

Friday, Aug. 23, 2002 | 10:42 a.m.

Due to a budget crunch, student schedules at UNLV are getting squeezed at both ends.

Popular first-year courses will not be added to accommodate demand, and graduate classes with low enrollment face getting cut from the schedule, UNLV officials said.

As a result, many freshmen will likely not get the courses they want this semester and several graduate students who have had their classes cut report having to redirect the final years of their academic careers.

"It's not that unusual to cut courses with low enrollments," said Ray Alden, University of Nevada, Las Vegas provost. "What we are now doing that we have not done in the past, is we're not opening up new sections."

With enrollment up by 10 percent this year and state funding levels suffering, UNLV is being forced to become more efficient with its limited resources.

"It's a little more intensive management than we have had in the past," said Rainier Spencer, associate dean of UNLV's College of Liberal Arts.

College officials have been asked to stick to a tight set of guidelines. A memo released by Alden earlier this month predicted budget problems and asked academic deans to cut undergraduate courses with fewer than 15 students and graduate courses with fewer than eight.

"This is a reminder for us to be darn careful of how we are staffing our departments and let us administrators know to not let a small course go," said Gene Hall, dean of the College of Education.

UNLV officials do not have final figures yet on how many classes have been cut due to lackluster enrollment, nor do they know how many new sections would have been added had there been more money available.

But considering UNLV President Carol Harter's goal to make the university a major research institution, one professor said that cutting graduate courses with low enrollment is a shortsighted approach.

"On the one hand, Dr. Harter is saying she wants this to be a great research university and on the other hand, they are canceling graduate seminar classes -- which make a great research university," said Craig Walton, professor of ethics and policy studies.

One of Walton's graduate students said the elimination of a graduate seminar she had planned to take this semester made her degree goal more difficult to attain.

"Basically, I'm left with finding a new degree program -- and my options are limited since (ethics and policy study) was one of the few programs designed specifically for working professionals," said Kristi Kudo, a UNLV graduate student.

The cutbacks are being made at a time when more students are heading to college because of a tougher economy.

And more cuts are expected to come.

With UNLV already underfunded for its classes this year, Gov. Kenny Guinn has issued a directive for all state agencies to cut 3 percent from their budgets. With a $150 million biannual operating budget, UNLV will take a substantial hit, Alden said.

The fallout of that request won't likely be known until next spring, but Tony Flores, UNLV's vice president of finance, said school officials are already considering several options -- including freezing some positions and capping enrollment.

"When you go through the process of cutting as much as you can, you have to ask what this means to academic programs," Flores said. "We are quite a ways from cutting academic programs."

Capping enrollment throughout Nevada's university and community college system is one of the more extreme measures being considered. Under such a plan, students would be turned away from institutions that have historically been open to all.

"That is something we are considering," said Jane Nichols, Nevada's higher education chancellor. "No decision has been made at this point."

One thing that everyone involved is promising is that administrators will be affected by the cuts before students.

"This is trench warfare today," Regent Mark Alden said. "Let's take care of the trenches. If the administrators have to take a hit, then so be it."